WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Turns Out Obamacare Is Going to Limit Your Choices. “Prices on the insurance exchanges that will make their debut on Oct. 1 will, by broad consensus, mostly be higher than you were paying before,* but lower than some studies had projected. And why is it lower? The answer, it appears, is that state and federal regulators have been pushing insurers to hold the cost down. In some cases, insurers have simply pulled out of the market, as Aetna did when Maryland asked it to lower prices by 29 percent. In other cases, such as Kaiser Permanente in California, the companies have gone ahead offering high priced insurance that few people seem likely to buy. But it’s been clear for a while that most of the insurers who stayed on the exchanges, at least in states with aggressive pricing policies, have been keeping their costs down by restricting the number of authorized providers in the policies they offer on the exchange.”

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MARK TAPSCOTT: A defunding debate scorecard: How ‘Modern Republicanism’ is protecting Obamacare. Too good for a breakout quote. Read the whole thing.

LESSONS FROM KENYA: Once Again, Gun-Free Zones Kill.

STILL SPEAKING: Ted Cruz Pulls An All-Nighter To Defund ObamaCare.

STANDING UP AGAINST SEGREGATION at Hamilton College.

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails: “My high school daughter is interested in small, rural, liberal arts
colleges. Hamilton just dropped off my ‘must visit’ list.”

TAX NOTES: The IRS Scandal: Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic.

Related: Christian Science Monitor: Why retirement of Lois Lerner doesn’t end IRS tea party scandal.

Also: Network News Blackout On Lois Lerner Retirement.

UPDATE: Lois Lerner’s Lawyers Negotiating with Oversight Committee on Immunity.

MICHAEL BARONE: Government shutdown polls not the same as 1995-96. “My interpretation: Voters are quietly picking up on the fact that Barack Obama doesn’t do policy very well, certainly not nearly as well as Clinton did.”

IT’S NOT REALLY A “CEILING” IF YOU KEEP RAISING IT: Washington Post: A recent history of America’s debt ceiling, in one interactive graphic. “If lawmakers and the White House can reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling this fall, it will be the 40th time the limit was raised since 1980.” Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Make your plans accordingly.

SEQUESTRATION IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Members of Congress Got $1.7 Million in Free Trips in August.

MICKEY KAUS: Why Bill Clinton Doesn’t Sleep With Hillary, But In A Separate Hotel: “I buy that explanation, don’t you? Logistics over love! Good to see New York’s journalists strip away the veneer of BS and get to the truth of the matter.”

THE HILL: Reid unites grumbling caucus, has votes to pass spending bill. Make ’em vote for it, ObamaCare and all. On a roll-call vote.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURE: President Of Iran Arrives In New York.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, POVERTY ACTIVISTS WOULD COMPLAIN ABOUT HARSH LAWS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Little Sisters of the Poor sue over Obamacare fines, contraception requirement. “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized a contraception mandate that ignores the fact groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor are religious organizations, according to a lawsuit filed to protect them against fines for refusing to comply with an Obamacare mandate.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: Voters Like Republican Ideas So Why Don’t They Elect Republicans? I think a lot of it’s the press, and Hinderaker agrees:

Given those numbers, you would think that Republicans will sweep in 2014–increase their hold on the House, and take the Senate. But that isn’t what voters have in mind. Rasmussen also finds that currently, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic Congressional preference poll by 40%-37%. It’s a paradox: voters prefer Republicans on the issues, but still lean toward voting for Democrats. One could speculate about why that is true; I think it is obvious that the press’s ceaseless attacks on Republicans are part of the explanation. That is a longstanding problem, but the numbers suggest that Republicans will do best if they keep pounding away on the issues, especially the ones where voters are predisposed to favor them.

Yes, but they need to take a wider view and figure out ways of neutralizing the dying traditional media. Also, repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!

CHANGE: Moody’s Alters Costa Rica Outlook To Negative.

MEN: The New Second-Class Citizens.

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PAUL RAHE: After Cruz Has Said His Piece. . . .

UPDATE: Oh, Hell, here’s the key bit:

What the hearties in the House are doing — and what Ted Cruz is doing — is signaling to the discontented that there really is another way. They can vote Republican in 2014; and, if they do so big time, there will be a correction of course.

The leadership of the Republican Party hates this. Like Jeb Bush in early 2009, they want “to get beyond Reagan.” They want to surrender on immigration; they have designed a Republican healthcare bill that is little more than Romneycare writ large; and they desperately want to make nice with the Democrats. They do not really want a change of course. They merely want to take their turn as managers of the administrative entitlements state. They want to take advantage of discontent without having to commit themselves to a reduction in the size and scope of the government.

If they hate Ted Cruz — if behind the scenes they are feeding the media attacks on him — it is because he is threatening to throw a monkey wrench into the works. They hated the Tea Party. Initially, in 2009, they tried to dismiss it and get on with the process of surrendering to the Democrats on the healthcare question; and then, in August 2009, all hell broke loose in the town meetings, and Charles Grassley and the rest of them found that they had to back off. The Republican tide of 2010 kept them cornered, but the Tea Party folks did not have a plausible candidate to run for the nomination in 2012 and the whole thing subsided. Now the regulars are once again fully in charge — and along comes this maniac Cruz who threatens to revive the fervor of the Tea Party and force the Republicans to move in the direction of smaller government.

Yep. Pretty much.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Ted Cruz’s Long Speech. “I am not crazy about Cruz’s plan to block cloture on the House resolution, but I applaud his speech. Obamacare is unpopular, and Republicans should pound away at it non-stop. Within the last few hours, reports have surfaced that House Republicans may attach a one-year delay in Obamacare’s individual mandate to the Senate’s ‘clean’ continuing resolution. Obamacare may also feature in upcoming debates over raising the debt ceiling.”

Hang it around their necks every chance you get.

THEY’VE REALLY BEEN PUSHING GLOBAL WARMING, AND I THINK THIS IS BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN GETTING A LOT OF PUSHBACK LATELY: Popular Science Shuts Off Comments.

GUN RIGHTS: Kerry to sign UN arms treaty.

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign an arms trade treaty opposed by the Senate and the gun lobby as early as Wednesday, and Republicans aren’t happy about it.

Kerry’s plan to sign the treaty on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week has sparked immediate criticism from GOP opponents. “This treaty is already dead in the water in the Senate, and they know it,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services. “The Administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats.”

A majority of Senators oppose the treaty because it covers small arms, making ratification impossible in the short term.

Republicans should push a non-ratification vote in the Senate now, and get Democrats from swing states on record. And we need to push, instead, for the international human right to be armed.

I HATE LINK ROT: Scoping and addressing the problem of “link rot.” When linking back to an old news story, I’ll usually try to link to an InstaPundit post that summarizes and quotes it, as well as linking it, rather than just putting in a straight link. That way, if the direct link goes bad (as happens all too often) at least readers can easily get the gist. I wish that sites, especially big new sites, would take link integrity more seriously.

HEH: Think Progress: ‘Cruz Filibuster Is So Meaningless We’re Gonna Keep Writing About It While It’s Happening.’ So Think Progress is still a thing? Huh.

SO THERE’S HOPE FOR CONGRESS: “Brain Dead” Might Not Mean Brain Dead After All.